


A Fake Cause: A Fake Death

by TimeTravelingDetective221



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Bromance, Feels, M/M, Moriarty Feels, POV First Person, POV Sebastian Moran, Post-The Final Problem, Pre- The Empty House, Subtext, The Empty House, The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 04:50:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1675328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeTravelingDetective221/pseuds/TimeTravelingDetective221
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe, just maybe, Moriarty did survive his fall over that cliff. And if he survived, what would keep him from going back to being the only person to match Sherlock Holmes? What would keep him from going back to his web of criminals? Back to his most loyal? His most trusting? To Sebastian Moran? Exactly. Nothing would.<br/>(From Sebastian's perspective.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fake Cause: A Fake Death

My face pressed against the rough edges of the wall I was being brutally smushed on. My skin was pulling away from where it properly should be on my cheekbone upon contact with the concrete and I winced, seeing I was staining the surface with my gore. The blood slowly seeped from my cheek and while I tried to turn my gaze, I continued scraping my face with the solid surface. But I had no choice if I wanted to have a chance against my assaulter.

I saw his face and a gut wrenching feeling swept over me -all intention of attack rushing from my mind. I had suspected this day and yet I had denied its imminent coming. "Of forty-eight years and already slipping, Sebastian?" I could feel his whisper warm and red in my ear, his voice displeased and taunting, and still paradoxically chilling to the bone. "Disappointing."

 _But you were dead_ , I thought in my head, not daring to utter these words for I knew that if I did, _I_   would be the dead man.

He had, in the fact of previous time, been dead. Not physically, but by way of news- that now was proven false. He -the Napoleon of Crime- had plunged into the Falls of the Reichenbach to his presumed death along side 'The Great' Sherlock Holmes. Or so everyone was convinced to believe. The papers had mourned the loss of a brilliant professor's mind. The criminals of the world mourned the loss of their greatest and most wicked associate. I had mourned the loss of my greatest friend and most loyal employer. But yet after three years of relentless grief and senseless pains of guilt and emptiness, it had al been for a fake cause. A fake death.

And then here I was: pressed up against the wall of the dark alleyway of a East London pub by Moriarty, his breath hot and stale in my ear as he whispered to me of my vast ability to disappoint and while he compacted me closer to the concrete, I bled.

"But I suppose your mindlessness will have to be excused this time, Sebastian. It is evident from your stained sleeve and sour breath you've been working at the liquor." He sighed and backed away from me, letting go of my arm he had been holding between my shoulder blades, allowing me to regain a dizzy ability to again move freely.

I turned to look at him fully now, taking in his live presence that appeared just similar to the figure that I saw tumble over a cliff into the waterfall's haze. The quick movement combined with intoxication made me lightheaded, my mind fluttered around lightly.

"What is the date?" He asked me while he fixed his tie. "Um," I said, realizing then that I had quite a lot of drinks earlier -though not being able to recall quite how many- I knew this question shan't be thought about with so much strain. "It must be the second of March, I'd have to say."

In response, he nodded with the air of which he ebed when within thought. I nodded too, but as to encourage a response from him. Must to my haste and distaste to the way I remembered he became when involved in personal thought I spoke up gain, knowing if I did not ask, Moriarty would not so much share his thoughts or plans until mere moments after the wanted them to be carried out.

"Are you on a schedule, James?" Asked I.

A devious smirk creeped to his paled lips. (Of all creatures lurking between crevasses of the deepest ocean or slithering by the camouflage under leafy foliage in the wild jungle has there been such a misshaped, crooked, or downright wrong looking attempt as a smile then the one that spasmed across the face of Professor James Moriarty when he was within the context of paling crime.)

"Oh, but of course, Sebastian. We have a client. "He returned.

I blundered. How could Moriarty just assume that I was going to rejoin him in his pursuit of major, world toppling crimes like I once had? I put this thought into speech, audacity and intoxication complimenting each other as one. "How is it, James, you just assume that I will go back into the life of crime with you?"

He raised an eyebrow pointedly towards me. "How could I not assume so, Moran?" Pause. "Do tell why you were in a pub such as this."

I couldn't quite tell if he had insulted me or just called me by name, but he had a point. I had been in the pub for a reason, and that reason had been him. "I was mourning you." I admitted.

"Were you?" He asked, seeming genuinely surprised for a mere fraction of a moment, until his face changed back to its normal coldness. "Or where you celebrating?"

I laughed aloud, "Oh, Professor…. you've been gone for far too log for it to have been celebration." I looked at him and my smile did nothing but fade upon gazing at the look he held. I knew now he was being serious and that I too, should be serious and so I cleared my throat.

"So tell me about this client. " Inquired I. 

Moriarty seemed to snap from his thoughts, eyes brightening as much as his were capable and we started to stroll down to the end of the ally way. Moriarty handed me a handkerchief that he had likely pick pocketed from someone on the street earlier and I gratefully pressed it to my bloody face.

"On the twelfth of this month we are to travel to America. On the twenty-fourth we are to commit murder. Do you know anything about staging mine accidents….?"


End file.
